The ORIGINAL gathering place for a merry band of Three Percenters. (As denounced by Bill Clinton on CNN!)

Friday, April 22, 2016

Tuesdays with Bernie

On Tuesday, I happened upon a conversation that by rights
should have given me PTSD, or at the very least a lazy eye. I go in to work earlier than most and start
at it pretty much right away. There is
an older gentleman who comes to work an hour early and spends that hour trying to consume as much food as he is able.
He is fond of his “Vietnam Vet” hat but looks entirely too young for
it. He has raged against the Bilderberg’s,
is a bit of a black nationalist, and loves the 24 hour news cycle. Usually, he is good for a laugh. I walk in
the break room and he is has put down his sandwich and is staring intently at
the TV screen that is currently highlighting whatever Bernie Sanders is up to.

So I says to him, half-jokingly, not really caring about his
politics, just making small talk,” So you feeling the Bern, are you?”

Considerately, “Well, I am, I just don’t think he’ll win”.

Sweet baby Jesus, I hit pay dirt. I can get an unvarnished opinion from a
Bernie supporter. The last one I tried
to talk to was not very sporting at all.
He played grievance Olympics by becoming offended at my use of a curse
word in a sentence. I believe it was, “How the fuck do you think that would
work?” or words to that effect. This one,
I can jump right into his mind a bit and root around to see if I can get to the
root cause of the madness.

“Okay, I’ll bite. What do you think that he will do for you personally?”
I ask.

“Well he doesn’t like Wall Street.”

"Who do you think is financing his campaign?” I retort. I am bluffing, of course. I really do not know nor care how he is
funding his war chest.

He is noticeably blinking.
The RAM is having difficulty processing the new information.

I redirect the question. “Okay, you do know that Bernie is
a communist, right?” I figure he MUST have heard that this probably is a bad
thing to be at some point in his life.

“No, he a socialist”

Okay, he did not quite take the bait but we can work with
this. If I can make him see how ruinous socialism
is, maybe…

“What do you think is a difference between the two?”

“Well theys either communist or socialist”.

I feel my left eye drift over towards my right.

“That may be more true than you know, but you do understand
that there are more forms of government than socialist and communist, right?”

He blinks again. Harder this time.

He retorts, “But you say that Trump was going to bail out of
the race”.

This is a reference to my original idea that Trump was just
in it for the campaign contributions, and would exit the race at the primary so
he can keep the money. I am quite sure
his success was as much of surprise to him as it was to everyone else, so I
stand by it as being correct for the time.

“Are you saying that he is not an opportunist?”

More blinking.

I ask, “Are you saying that me being incorrect on Trump
exiting the race is the exception that disproves the rule that Bernie is a
communist?”

I immediately regret the question and quickly move on, as he
is now visibly losing interest.

“Well Bernie is going to raise the living wage.” He says
triumphantly. This is something that he
just KNOWS.

“Cool, how is he going to do that?” I parry.

‘Well he is going to take it away from the corporations.” He
reposts.

“Do you know that 75% of the businesses in America are small
businesses that are either a single or family run and employ less than 50
workers? You want to tax those guys? How are they going to pay for it?”.

Ah ha, now I got him.

“Well if you don’t know, I aint going to tell you.” He
exclaims quite as-matter-of-factly.

‘Wait, did you just use the ole ‘I know the answer, I just
want you to tell me first’ trick?” I ask.

“Well if you don’t know, I aint going to tell you.” He
commits.

“But..” I stammer, having forgot all of my 3rd
grade comebacks. I feel as though my left eye is looking directly at my right
eye.

“Well if you don’t know, I aint going to tell you.” He repeats
this over and over again. This is his final stand. I know I will get no more from him.

We go back and forth a little bit and he catches me off guard
with a moment of clarity.

He says, ‘Well, no matter what we say, we just won’t agree.”

That was the most profound thing he had said to date. No, we will not see eye to eye on much of
anything. It bothers me a bit that I
know that he congratulated himself on his stunning victory, but I also know
that it only bothers me. The differences
being irreconcilable are clear and palpable.
I see that we, as a country, are finding less reason to debate and more
reasons to just shut down foreign ideas with noise. It remains to be see how long we find it politically
or economically advantageous to continue this charade and simple find an
amicable divorce.

I almost spit out my coffee a couple of times while reading this as the mouth is not made for swallowing and laughing at the same time… but the end pint is SO true. People can no longer deny the fact that we have split into at least 2 different cultures - and a house divided WILL fall. “Diversity” is tearing us apart, not uniting us. The lines are drawn – and it’s time to pick a side… may we pick the one of God. Happy Passover!

1. After the GOP leaders revealed that THEY, not the 'voting public' pick the candidates to run in the November election, FOX's Sean Hannity asked "Why the hell vote?" - I've been asking that same question since Hannity was still in diapers. Kern County (or City, depending on whose history you read), in California (my home state) used an optical scan ballot system back in 1962. When I read about that in the papers, my first thought was that we - men and women - no longer have the physical ability to verify anybody's vote. If you can control an electronic result of a human's input, then the human in control of the machine is controlling the output.

2. A website called blackboxvoting.org has been around since at least 2003 and poses the same questions I had about voting, hoping to educate readers about how our so-called "votes" have been electronically manipulated by those who are in control of the voting machines. Do some reading there and wise up.

3. In my research I've come to realize over the past 30 years that we, the men and women living in the country of America, have probably NEVER voted for the officers of the corporation called the United States. That's because it's not OUR corporation. It belongs to the wealthy elite who created it back in the early 1770's - BEFORE the revolution. It existed long before the Constitution, and even before the Articles of Confederation. "We the People" in the preamble to the Constitution does NOT refer to the men an women out in the States, or Commonwealths or Territories and Possessions. It refers to the men who created the corporation, and SAYS SO, in plain English, if you read it properly. They created it for themselves and THEIR posterity - not us. They said that in plain English as well. Even most of the judges nowadays will tell us we can't bring the Constitution and any arguments relying on it into their courts - because IT DOES NOT APPLY TO US.

Read some of the Informer's and James Montgomery's research and you'll see what's been hidden from us all along.

4. It's been clearly and plainly obvious that anybody alive today has NEVER voted in an election wherein their vote meant something, or helped put a candidate of their choice into office. Dick Gregory used to talk about this in his monologues about the 1968 Chicago convention where he related the story of how he was shown the actual machine that displayed who the party bosses decided "won" the election, not the "voters". At best "elections" are a popularity poll so the powers that be can figure out how to dress up their boy to be more presentable to the masses.

5. The sooner we poor dumb sheeple wake up to the fact that we've had the wool pulled over our eyes for 240+ years, the sooner we can get around to finally establishing the country, and a REAL government, that we should have back then. The many corporations set up by the Crown of England (the banking corporation, not the monarchy) and its minions, INCLUDING the United States, have been using the people of America as cannon fodder to protect THEIR interests for a long time. It's time we started looking after our own interests and quit being their economic slaves.

As to the candidates, Ann Barnhardt's Axiom applies: The fact that a given person is holding or seeking high-level public office is, in and of itself, proof that said person is morally and/or psychologically UNFIT to hold public office.

Us having irreconcilable differences is fine and pacually part of our founding principles. Today's problem rests in the notion that your coworker holds - that because he and his crew "know best", they somehow garner the authority to compel you to bow to their ways via force of government they call the Democratic majority (never bothering to consider what happens when he and they are not the majority).

Too many have forgotten that even the majority vote must be checked, so balance exists.

Example- he forgets that using the vote to snatch another's property bleeds easily over to the use of the vote to snatch that speech or or that right to trial or NY other right.

Our nation is today inhabited by fools who have zero ability to think things through. Too few even bother to try any longer. Slaves to their on ignorance they have chosen to be.

Partner, the parties are not things that belong to the people. Primaries are not even government elections! What is happening is people are starting to figure out that George Washington was correct about political parties (factions).

A test for you.Ask ten people you know if they think democrat and Republican parties are part of government.Ten out of ten most times will say yes -when the truth is that they are not. These parties are just private clubs, companies, now having their own popularity contest, and it has not one actual thing to do with government.

That Hannity - and you maybe- don't know or understand that, shows far more about you and your complaints than you realize.

Popular vote count does not nor should it elect a president or even pass a law. Heck, not even at the jury box can a simple majority rule. The fact is that justice, elections included, require checks on the power of the Democratic vote.

Our legislature is built upon that principle. It's why we have a house and a Senate. States must have their say just like the people must have their say. Electing a president is no different.

Our vote matters, but it is not the only thing that does. Rights, for instance are something that is immune to the Democratic vote, for if they are not immune then rights themselves cannot exist at all. So check yourself or just outright admit that you are just a treasonous DEMOCRAT who quite literally opposes the Constitution (or you just don't really understand any of it, even the consequences of what you claim to be whining about).

People who intend to vote for Colonel Sanders of the Free S**t Army need to understand that every working person and every object of value will have to be taxed severely to pay for the Colonel's giveaways. Good luck collecting that $15.00 per hour, or trillion Zimbabwe dollars per hour, then.

Oh, you really opened a can of worms with the Bernie supporter thing. First off, everything Anon 11:56am said. But let's expand on the mentality of the average "Freebie for Me" crowd. They have no concept of how a debt based economy runs, what our income taxes are used for, or just about anything else outside of - they want free shit. It wasn't enough that they got conned with ObamaCare; they're gluttons for punishment. Like a sick gambler, when the system screws them, they double down the next time because the system loves them (in their heads anyway) and the system of stealing other peoples shit to give to them will work next time. How Vermont (Peoples Republic of Burlington) has had Constitutional Carry for so long with a communist like Bernie as senator eluded me for the longest time until someone said to me "well, communists need guns to take over, don't they". Good point...Also, your average Bernie supporter has no clue as to history; particularly the amount of dead left in the wake of communism. Again, they hear "free shit" and it's like zombies gurgling "Brains, Brains!", only they say "Free, Free". You were conversing with an imbecile who probably can't count his change in a grocery store unless he pulls out his phone to use the calculator. I'm certain that he, being one of the "proles", never read "1984" and can't think past the next scratch-off lottery ticket. Discourse with people like this would be wonderful. Unfortunately they have been taught NOT to be able to think. So you're at a loss right from the get-go. Just give him a TV with MSNBC playing, a big glass of fluoridated water and the promise of something free and he'll be in bliss for the rest of the day...

The "pro choice" and "pro life" people scream past each other, neither side really listening much. The "pro gun rights" and "pro gun safety" people also pretty much scream past each other, neither side really listening much to the other. How could this possibly turn out?

Well, once upon a time, the abolitionists and states rights people screamed past each other, neither side listening much to the other. We're still trying to figure out if that ended well or not.

Go even farther back and you find British subjects in the UK and British subjects in the North American colonies screaming past each other about whether or not the rights of free-born British subjects extended to the ones born on the western shores of the Atlantic ocean. I think that one turned out somewhat better. So maybe there's cause for hope.

"That was the most profound thing he had said to date. No, we will not see eye to eye on much of anything. It bothers me a bit that I know that he congratulated himself on his stunning victory, but I also know that it only bothers me. The differences being irreconcilable are clear and palpable. I see that we, as a country, are finding less reason to debate and more reasons to just shut down foreign ideas with noise. It remains to be see how long we find it politically or economically advantageous to continue this charade and simple find an amicable divorce."

is EXACTLY the problem and can not be solved by "compromise". This divide has broadened significantly over the last decade and at this point I believe the divide is too large to bridge.

Trump disturbs me. Trump disturbs me. Bernie disturbs me. Hillary disturbs me. They are all troubling because they all feel they have the right to run MY life, to make the rules for ME. The trouble is, most people disturb me, because they seem to have bought into this whole process that somebody has the right to rule me. They do not. The only thing that I am obligated to do is to live my life while not infringing on the person or property of anyone else. Pretty simple, right?

On one side is the left, who believe that somehow I am obliged to contribute to the well-being of the collective. In their case it's healthcare, "living wage" whatever that is, and a myriad of other social goodies.

The right feels that I am obliged to pay for the never-ending war machine that fuels a global empire.

The truth is I am morally obliged to do nothing of the sort. I have to live my life and leave everyone else to theirs. The trouble is that people believe in politics and government and the collective right of OTHERS deciding what I need. That is disturbing.

Where do these folks get these magical rights to do these things? By getting the rubes to believe they somehow have special powers that we mortals don't have. Sorry folks, I'm not buying what they're selling. Sure, as a practical matter I go along with most things grudgingly because it's better than life in a cage, but that'll last only so long. People are waking up to the reality that politics, government and authority is a rigged game.

It all comes down to one thing, really. Ask yourself, "where did they get the authority to do this"? The question could apply to a myriad of authoritarian things, but ask the question.

Cops can have guns that you cannot. Where did they get that authority? They couldn't have gotten them from the people, because remember we don't have the right to have them. You cannot give someone the right to something that you don't possess as an individual. I cannot demand you pay for the things I want, so it stands to reason that I cannot give someone else the right to take it from you via "voting", yet people accept it. Where does all this magical authority come from? From rubes who believe that others have the right to rule them.

Wake up time, folks. A cop has the right to stop an armed robber because YOU have the right to stop an armed robber. You cannot put someone in a cage for years because you don't like the fact that he's growing a plant in his yard, yet we accept this from government. If YOU cannot do it (morally) as a human being, government CANNOT do it, regardless of how much they ramble on about voting, democracy, and society. If you're living your own life and not bothering anyone else, you are far better than any advocate of government.

Government is a sham, in any form, as is voting. It's time for all good, moral men to call BS on authoritarian tyranny and leave each other alone. Any takers?

I wanted to say "thank you" for taking the helm from your father. I see that your old man has an e-mail address listed on the blog, but wonder if you would be kind enough to provide one that you use. Some of us may have something to pass along that is not for the world to read. If not, I certainly respect your right to privacy, as taking over for Mike is a job in itself. Thanks!

Just for future reference, the snappy elementary school comeback you were looking for is "I know you are but what am I?" To keep it from sounding too much like an irrelevancy, you can insert a reference to the thing you know he is that he doesn't know you are, i.e. "I know you don't know how that works, but what makes you think I don't know?"

Ultimately, political contests are a proxy for resorting to direct force of arms, and can only avert the contest by direct force when the outcome is considered a reasonable proxy by the side that is losing. Civilization, courage, honor, decency, personal responsibility, moral judgment, intellectual integrity...everything that is historically and theoretically connected with real decisive military effectiveness is consistently on the losing side in our political contests. No rational person can continue to believe that the 'winners' could defend their political titles if it came to a real fight, and so it is inevitable that it will come to a real fight.

Bluesgal....it was settled. It is called the Great Compromise", aka the Constitution itself. The exact problem is that ignorant fools disregard it as if it is not the settlement it was designed and passed as. .

Gun debate being a perfect example! There is nothing to talk past each other beyond adherence to the Second Amendment as written OR repeal/amendment to it.

There is our side saying "shall not be infringed WON and IS the Supreme Law while the "others" simply pretend it doesn't apply. In other words, we are correct and they are incorrect.

Now, there can be honest debate waged as to repealing that particular enumeration but that isn't what gun controllers do. They know doing so exposes them. So instead they dishonestly try to sidestep the only real option they have!

So you see, there is no talking past one another. There is a simple fact at hand -one side is far tually correct and another side that isnt. What exists is a pathetic denial of this fact, a refusal to accept that they lost the gun control debate the moment the bill of rights became the LAW,the Supreme Law of the land.

Sadly, some on "our" side refuse to see that the debate was won long ago too. They also refuse to just accept that victory with as much zealotry as the grabbers. Ummm yeah, it really does mean OWN and CARRY and USE in defense! It really does hold for ALL levels of government. It really does mean shall not be infringed. More on "our" side ought start admitting it.....all of it....and stop begging for permission slips along with extolling the virtues of them.

Matthew, Thank you for carrying on you OM's good work.What you have gone through is just another example to something Mike said sometime back, to the effect, "we are now two separate people occupying a common land".All I can ask is that the divorce is peaceful. Unfortunately, I don't think it will be.

What do you think the material differences are between the socialists, communists and our american democrats? This isn't a trick question. The difference is we have guns and around 39 billion rounds of ammunition.

There should be no government-mandated minimum wage. Anyone who tries to support a family on minimum wage is a damned fool. Min wage was never intended and should never intend to support a family! If you're working at minimum wage now, find the gumption to get more education and more marketable skills. Then you might be able to support yourself and a family better! Anyone who depends on the government to force employers to provide them a "living" wage is just too stupid, ignorant and/or lazy to earn it for himself! These people are otherwise known as Democrats.

Complete agreement with what Chiu ChunLing so clearly wrote. Worth another reading:

"Ultimately, political contests are a proxy for resorting to direct force of arms, and can only avert the contest by direct force when the outcome is considered a reasonable proxy by the side that is losing. Civilization, courage, honor, decency, personal responsibility, moral judgment, intellectual integrity...everything that is historically and theoretically connected with real decisive military effectiveness is consistently on the losing side in our political contests. No rational person can continue to believe that the 'winners' could defend their political titles if it came to a real fight, and so it is inevitable that it will come to a real fight."

April 22, 2016 at 4:41 PM

Couldn't have said it so well myself but I know right thinking when I read it.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.